Am I being paranoid? I'm going to stock pile insulin

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/26805663/cdc-had-ebola-concerns-with-new-york-to-minneapolis-passenger

Yes. See this from another Fox source Shep Smith (Ebola Scare)

Getting pretty nervous. It spreads like hep. Its gonna get some of us. Although, your video did make me feel better. So did this picture of a puppy. Thanks.

Yeah. Paranoid. FOX?

I'm NOT, at all, concerned about Ebola.

I am not paranoid.

That being said, I have roughly 27,000 units of insulin in the fridge. :-)

I agree. Although it is something to watch, right now Ebola is not a risk for the majority of us here. People who care for patients are the most at risk. There were a lot of mistakes made also including that the hospital didn't follow the proper protection methods it seems which have worked for doctors without borders in Africa: Protective clothing covering entire body, before removing clothing spray entire suit with bleach and wash gloves with bleach first with one person helping another to remove everything. There is a high rate of transmission to nurses and doctors- 1 in 16, I think, have contracted Ebola. I don't think medicin sans frontier have had a transmission, they do all of the above. It has to be contained in West Africa first because otherwise it will start to spread elsewhere eventually.

Wow, and I thought keeping 6,000 units was a lot! (I'm also not scared of ebola...)

I believe there is cause for concern. Didn't they tell us not to worry when AIDS first appeared? Ok, that seems to have disappeared for some strange reason. Or maybe not!
I wish I knew what I was talking about...

I think I have about 10,000 units on hand… Plus about 10,000 rounds of ammunition so I can procure more by force if it ever came to that

I guess I worry more about things that they say are blood-transmittable, in particular, hepatitis, and stuff, because I worry that since I am always checking my blood sugar, I have all these tiny cuts in my fingertips. I get hep tested, prob once a year, just because I'm worried that if I did contract something blood borne, I would spread it to people, just by shaking hands with them, on accident. Also, kinda worry that it might be easier for me to contract something like that if I touch something that is contaminated because of lowered immune and all these darn little breaks in my skin. Is that unreasonable? Sure would take a weight off, if it was.

I can see where your concern comes from, but "blood-borne" means you would have to have contact with the blood of someone infected while they're contagious and symptomatic. The fact that you break your skin via testing doesn't make you any more susceptible than it makes anyone else.

Having just finished reviewing a book on microbiology that makes specific mention of Ebola... I'd be more concerned about flu or enterovirus, frankly. Ebola isn't as transmissible as either one. It's tough for the immune system to fend off, primarily because the ability to recognize the virus isn't widespread, but it's like hantavirus or plague — not all that common and preventable if you take precautions, and it *is* survivable with good medical care. All the deaths in Africa are happening almost entirely because the public health system there isn't equipped to deal with an epidemic of this scale of a disease this dangerous. Even the guy who died in Dallas died as much because he did not get ideal care, because he wasn't identified as having Ebola quickly enough. You'll note that the people who've been infected in the US were people who a) had direct contact with an infected person and b) did *not* observe proper quarantine for at least 48 hours while in contact with the individual. The virus didn't do anything extraordinary to infect those nurses -- the hospital simply did not do what common sense dictates you should do when confronted with a person who potentially carried this disease.

That said, I do not think it's a bad idea to have a little extra insulin on hand, ever.

They know a lot more about viral transmission now than they did in 1979. There was also a fair bit of prejudice at play with respect to AIDS. It was "a gay disease" and a disease of IV drug users, and to a certain extent I think a lot of people in public health secretly (or not so secretly) felt it would kill off "undesirables" who brought it on themselves with their risky behavior. Shame on them for that attitude, because unlike people, viruses do not have prejudice when it comes to determining who to infect. A virus will do what a virus will do... and if you set aside fear or prejudice, and learn how viruses behave, then you have all you need to prevent it from infecting others.

What we do NOT have, in this country, is a well-educated populace and a strong public health service. It's been gutted by budget cuts. That, more than anything, is the only source of worry I have. We don't have a Surgeon General right now because politics. NIH has promising findings that the rabies vaccine could also prevent Ebola, but they can't fund further trials because politics. Money is earmarked for wars but not for disease prevention -- that right there is why *I* lose sleep.

Again, yes. If you can answer yes to all of the following questions, then maybe you should have a concern (maybe you should start wearing a sterile glove?).

Are you routinely getting fingertip infections?

Are you changing the lancet after every test?

Are you using the shortest depth setting on your lancing device?

Are you washing your hands before AND after each and every test?

Can you still squeeze blood out of the lancet-sized hole in your finger 2, 5, 10, 15 minutes after you test?

I don't usually turn to Fox for objective reporting. Ebola is certainly something to be concerned about, not because it is often fatal. No, the real thing that bothers me is incompetence and corruption in our health system. In my view hospitals are run as businesses and have dropped the ball in taking care of their responsibility to society. They should all be prepared for this and they aren't. With proper procedures Ebola could be readily handled and contained in the US. But I don't really trust the health system to take care of that on it's own without intervention.

Why do you think any business has a 'responsibility to society'?

Isn't that the government's role?

If we had a socialist healthcare system, perhaps you'd have a point, but thank goodness we do not!

The Flu is actually something we should be concerned about. It is far, far more communicable and causes ~50,000 deaths per year.

Ebola is not something that the average person should waste any energy thinking about. Right now it is being used as a political hammer by both sides right before mid-terms. And the naive, generally uneducated, American public is frothing at the mouth over it thanks to the media sensationalism.

Thanks. As always the advice is, 'wash your hands.' I totally don't wash my hands after ever test, but I think I will start. I should. I'm compulsive about gloves because I'm always worried that there could be trace amounts of my own blood on my hands. I have never had a fingertip infection, have you? I don't use a lancing device because they often don't work - I just do it manually, so I am going pretty deep, but its really rare that I can squeeze blood out 2 min later. Thanks for the thoughtful answers, everybody.

I think that my hospital is run by my insurance company...my trust level: LOW.
I just don't like the math on this one....http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/health/how-ebola-spreads/ I'm worried about our medics. They are out delivering babys at peoples houses and stuff. Not very hygienic. Blood gets on them. Most of the time they are OK, but not 100% of the time. The really sweet ones will try and help anyone, even if they get covered in blood. I really appreciate those ones, but I worry about them. The flu kills people who are all ready on their way out, I've started to view it as a natural cause of death that saves people from extended hospital stays before they die. This is a bit different.

if you stockpile…expiry dates are important to rotate…oldest first

Please go do some reading up on the flu... It does not only kill people who are "already on their way out" anyway!!

wiki said its bad on young kids and pregnant woman, which I didn't expect. I guess I always think of it as killing the very elderly, or end stage HIV. I always discount the dangers to diabetics and asthmatics because I figure they don't die, even if they get 'sicker,' than most. Of course, cancer, but everything is a concern when your on cancer treatment. Seems like passing the buck to say that the flu killed you if your having cancer treatment. Statistics get confusing....